Canterbury’s Impressionist Painter: Margaret Stoddart, 1865-1934
Born 3 October 1865 at Stoddart Cottage to Mark and Anna (nee Schjott) Stoddart.
When Margaret was 11, her family sold their farm and left Diamond Harbour bound for Scotland. Margaret and her sister attended school in Edinburgh before the family returned to New Zealand in 1879 to live at Fendalton’s Lismore Lodge.
In 1882, Margaret enrolled at the Canterbury College School of Art. She was only 17 when she made her debut in the Canterbury Society of Arts’ annual exhibition.
Expeditions to the high country and to the Chatham Islands fuelled her passion for capturing botanical treasures and local scenes.
She went to Melbourne in 1894 and successfully exhibited there.
In 1897 she moved back to Diamond Harbour with her two sisters and mother to live and work in ‘the Big House’ (later known as Godley House).
A year later, Margaret left for England and settled in St Ives, Cornwall, the centre of English impressionism. During nine years abroad, she honed her eye for landscapes and painted and exhibited widely. Her work was shown at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français in Paris for seven years in succession, as well as at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. In London, she exhibited at the Baillie Gallery.
Before returning to New Zealand in 1906, she exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts with the Society of Women Artists. She then resumed her old life at Diamond Harbour with her landscapes of that time considered her best work of local subjects.
In 1913, the Stoddart estate was sold to Lyttelton Borough Council. Before leaving Diamond Harbour for the last time, Margaret painted one of her best known works of Godley House.
A year later, she settled in Hackthorne Road, Cashmere where she continued to paint and gave private painting lessons, as well as participating in philanthropic activities and the city’s cultural life.
Margaret worked continuously from 1914 until her death in 1934, capturing many Christchurch scenes and iconic natural landscapes.